So I had a question that was bugging me:
Why did Arya go south with Ned & Sansa to King's Landing? It's not like she was marrying Tommen or anything. What was Martin's reason?

 

I imagine, though I can't recall if it was stated outright, that it was considered to be a way to improve Arya's courtly manner and teach her better interpersonal skills that would be necessary for her eventual marriage to a lord, whether southron or northern. Far better to send her to Kings Landing where she could mingle with more of her peers, including Myrcella and Sansa, than it would be to leave her at Winterfell to run wild.

 

Considering their (Ned/Cat) reservations about even going down at all, you'd think they'd have just sent her to Riverrun or had her hosted a southron-esque family like the Manderlys.

 

Cat encouraged Ned to go south in the book.

And you can't deny that she would learn far more at court than she would at Riverrun with old Hoster Tully, the Blackfish, and Edmure. And White Harbor is hardly a bustling court, while containing a city.

 

.... Damnit Cat. :facepalm

True. Though to be honest, as the second daughter and one of the younger siblings, I couldn't see her marrying out of the North, or even marrying someone she didn't want to.

 

Slighty extended trailer agogo, too. 29 days to go!

 

It's too much! I can't even watch without squealing girlishly.

 

Hail to King Thomas Oliver, First of his name. Hail to the Dragonlord. Hail!
​

 

Game of Thrones - 1995 Style

 

Seeing those white blips flash across the screen gave me the urge to break out my VCR just so I could engage in glorious battle with the tracking system.

Edit: I forgot... is the third season of the show supposed to cover Storm of Swords AND Feast for Crows or just Storm of Swords?

 

Its just Storm of Swords, and only half it at that. Directors said the books and seasons won't match up because they see Seasons 1 and 2 as Part 1 and 2 of A Song of Ice and Fire, not A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings.

 

In case any of you have missed the recent previews/trailers:

The Beast
War

Bonus: in The Beast, there is a wildling dancing in the wide shot of Mance's camp.

 

http://uk.ign.com/videos/2013/03/19/game-of-thrones-george-rr-martin-talks-got-prequel-series

I'd be interested.

 

Question (with spoilers for those just following the show):

Spoiler

Did Roose Bolton always intend to betray the Starks, or was it only after the fall of Winterfell/Blackwater victory/Ramsay kidnapping Lady Hornwood that he went with it?

 

A Dunk & Egg series? That will be awesome. I read them just a couple of months ago, really great.

 

spoilers for season 3/ASOS ahead

Spoiler

I'm pretty sure he was going to betray them from the start (or at least as soon as it became a possibility). The Boltons have been fighting the Starks since before Aegon The Conqueror landed and he wanted to be Warden of the North.

 

Sad to hear, because:

Spoiler

I'm GMing a game on another forum where you play Dovahkiin! Jon Snow, and one of the paths the players will be able to take in the future involves befriending his trueborn son and later becoming an enemy to his bastard (and having a sort-of-wierd friendship with Roose over their mutual dislike/hatred of Ramsay. Thus culminating in Dovahkiin! Jon Snow versus The Bastard of Bolton where Jon does a whole lot of smackdown. Still, it'd be interesting if Roose gave him the go-ahead to do this, only for Jon to just kill his bastard and force him to replan...

 

Okay I've just gotten into the tv show after reading the books.

I think the actors are great, the sets are fantastic, I think the props let them down. I hate the uniform of the kings guard, it's not nearly as majestic as said in the books. I think the costumes are a bit dour, the queen looks far to casual most of the time.

I was suprised because everything else is done so well it just seems a shame.

 

Spoiler

Answer: All of the above.

From what I can infer he is a total and utter opportunist. I'm pretty confident that he only ever 'intends' to do somethings if things go the way they end up going. He is the sort of man who had thoroughly contemplated not only that possibility and the best response to it, but many others to the same degree. By that, I mean that the possibility had occurred to him, but he didn't actually care either way, avoiding any sort of commitment to anything in case something else took place.

Roose is so unlike other Martin secondaries in that it isn't solely money, ambition or family that drive him - each type of profit comes into play when it is best for him. The term 'best' in this case potentially means 'most entertaining', or even just which course might appeal to him most at any point in an empirical sense. The reason I love the character so much is because he has none of the pettiness and arrogance that go with a 'grand design' - he is at once a being incapable of feeling, and yet he is a creature of impulse. He has no master-plan for which arbitrary factors must be sacrificed, no final goal that requires objective consideration... I'm pretty sure his progression into the Warden of the North role was entirely reactionary and not at all by design. Sure, he had probably acknowledged at some point previously that something like that might happen, but I don't think he proactively engineered the events leading up to it, or even particularly hoped for them.

He is the most realistic character in the series in how noncommittal and detached he is, and simultaneously thus the most qualified to take advantage of events as they play out. In the same breath he'd commend or condemn his son and entire lineage, swear for a different king, etc, depending solely on the factors he has in consideration at that exact moment. No love or loyalty would be a part of those decisions. No machination beyond fleeting, momentary desires. Worse still, he is indifferent enough to stick by the majority of his decisions, whichever way they went. It makes him seem a sadist, when in fact he simply doesn't give a shit. It's fucking glorious.

Lady Barbrey says it best, I think.

Yes now the rains weep o'er his hall, and not a soul to hear.

 

Spoiler

Interesting. So Jon would be another plaything to him in my run, something to hold his interest for a while. He'd play him off against Ramsay, enjoying the idea of the Bastards of Winterfell and Dreadfort trying to take each other down. And in a sense, Jon would learn more simply by how Roose acts.